Hon Deputy Speaker, and to the members of the portfolio committee who participated in this debate, I wish to express, on behalf of the Ministry, our appreciation for the support extended for this Bill.
I want to quickly indicate that the support for the Bill expressed by the DA should be put in context because actually - at least the support expressed by hon member Maynier - is not support. I am going to explain why I'm saying that it is actually not support.
It is not support because right from the beginning, when the Bill was introduced, hon member Maynier - I don't know whether he did this on behalf of the party or because he was furthering the party line - desperately tried to discredit the introduction of the Bill on the grounds that the Bill was not affordable. It was too costly - that was the first argument.
The reason why the Bill was said to be too costly was that the estimation of the budget involved was calculated on the basis that the population of military veterans that we have today was largely of a particular age group and therefore, from the point of what it would cost government to support them for the remaining years of their lives, it would cost the billions that he was talking about. However, there is no policy in government that is worked out that way. It was a clear and desperate attempt to say this Bill should not be introduced.
The reason for this is obvious: In the constituency that the hon member represents, we have never heard anyone saying that former white soldiers who were conscripted to do national service were in need of government support. We have never heard that. He knows that there is actually no such problem. That is why he could afford to say this Bill should not be introduced.
However, when he failed, he then moved on to say that the definition of the beneficiaries, the military veterans, should actually include all white males who have gone through national conscription in this country. In response to that, we said no, we would then be missing the target community of citizens who had been identified as needing government support. Quite simply, if we were to say that all white males in South Africa above the age of 38 should be put here as people who deserved government support, we would be making a mockery of the problem that we as government need to address. The reason for this is that those people, the white male South Africans above the age of 38, are among the most empowered and most powerful citizens in this country. They need no support from anybody, as a matter of fact.
However, let me continue and say that our definition of military veterans is highly inclusive. In some quarters it could not even have been imagined that the people whom this Bill says we should look after would include those who fought in defence of apartheid and who, during that service, received salaries. When those people left the service, they received pensions. Today they have a military veterans' association, the Council of Military Veterans' Organisations, CMVO, which is awash with resources for looking after those people. However, we have included them!
This Bill caters for all South Africans who were in military organisations - statutory and nonstatutory. Those South Africans will be South Africans whose names appear on the lists submitted by all the organisations involved in 1994, when the new SA National Defence Force was established. The then SA Defence Force, SADF, submitted a list of 90 000 troops. Those 90 000 troops are part of these military veterans. The SADF did not submit a list of over half a million white males who were said to be its members.
The reality is that national service - if we are honest about what it is that we are seeking to address as the problem - did not deprive a white South African male of the opportunity to become what he wanted to be in life simply because he was doing national service. They were ordered for a limited period of time, two years or so, to go for national service. After that they would continue with their lives, plans and careers. To that extent, they cannot today be presented as people who are a problem that we must look after.
We have noted the comments made by other parties here about matters that we must take care of. For example, there was the issue raised by the hon Tolo, namely that the information around this intervention needs to be communicated to military veterans, especially those who are in rural areas far from the reach of what is going on in our government departments.
Furthermore, with respect to the point raised by hon Mncwango about the self-defence units and the self-protection units, we do not, even for a moment, want to suggest that there are no South Africans who may, for one reason or another, need support from government. We do not want to suggest that there are people who, due to their involvement in the past as a result of the struggle against apartheid or their involvement in defending the status quo, do not need support from government. Their involvement in the past led to the disruption of their lives and today they need support from government.
However, the Bill talks about military veterans - those who were soldiers. Self-defence units did not belong to military organisations. Self- protection units did not belong to military organisations, unless the hon member Mncwango wants to tell this House that there is a military organisation that he knows of, which was never declared and to which these people belonged.
I want to say that the work that must be done in order to improve the lives of military veterans in this country is enormous. We need to make it a point that at the end of the day, when this policy shall have been realised, military veterans enjoy pride of place within our communities and their sense of self-worth is restored. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
Bill read a second time (Democratic Alliance dissenting).